2008/03/07

Georgi Garanyan is (August 15, 1934) Saxophonist, composer and conductor, he began his musical career as a pianist in a university orchestra. He began playing saxophone by pure accident, but soon became a saxophonist in the youth orchestra of CDRI (Central Home of the Art Workers) led by Yuri Saulski.

The orchestra participated in the jazz competition during the World Youth Festival in Moscow in 1957 and some Polish musicians invited them to come to the Jazz Jamboree festival to Poland (the recording from these festivals were very popular among Soviet jazz lovers). The orchestra was not allowed to visit the Polish festival and was even heavily criticized in the press: "It's a pity to see the attempts of our youth to imitate the worst trends of the modern fashion. The youth orchestra of CDRI is an example of such loss of identity. With disgust we watch these longhaired stilyagas in exaggeratedly tight trousers and eccentric jackets."

In 1958, Garanyan joined the orchestra of Oleg Lundstrom, one of the best Soviet jazz big bands. In 1973 he became the leader of the band Melodiya and recorded his best albums, like Labyrinth, Concert in Bombay and Melodiya plays Duke Ellington. Labyrinth was the first jazz-rock LP in the history of the Soviet jazz.